ClientEarth Communications
14th October 2024
You’ve most likely heard of the climate COP (in 2024 COP29, which takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan). It brings together world leaders seeking solutions to the global climate crisis. What you may not know however, is that in parallel, there is another COP focusing specifically on saving nature – it’s known as the UN Biodiversity Conference.
The 16th UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16), which took place in October 2024, convened governments from around the world to take stock of the progress being made towards a set of goals to halt and reverse biodiversity loss over the next decade and beyond through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). It followed 2022’s COP15 in Montreal, Canada.
Find our COP16 analysis below.
The CBD - Convention on Biological Diversity, is an international legally binding treaty, which commits governments worldwide to safeguard biodiversity. It covers all life on Earth – ecosystems, animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms and focuses on achieving sustainable development – that is, human progress without threatening biodiversity. The CBD was signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and entered into force on 29 December 1993.
The governing body meets every two years to review what has been achieved and what still needs to be done to protect biodiversity around the world.
COP16 was intended to gather world leaders to assess the progress that has been made towards the agreement made at COP15, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). This agreement aims to set a global strategy for conserving and sustainably drawing on the world’s biological diversity.
The agreement contained such commitments as recognising Indigenous Peoples’ rights within nature protection, a strong target for restoring nature, and the commitment to protect 30% of coastal and marine areas, as well as 30% of the world’s land.
While the climate crisis is grabbing headlines, we are in the midst of an even more ominous – and perhaps even faster-moving – biodiversity crisis. Over a million plant and animal species are on the brink of extinction. WWF’s latest Living Planet report found that wildlife has dropped by 73% in 50 years. If we fail to stop the biodiversity crisis, it will have serious consequences for our global systems, with a likely breakdown of nature’s ability to provide clean air and water, food, medicines and materials, which are vital for humanity’s survival. With the future of our planet and ourselves hanging in the balance, the stakes could not be higher.
The challenge can feel insurmountable, but the reality is our fate is not yet sealed. This is why COP16, and all nature COPs, are so important, because they have the potential to help reverse this alarming trend, but only if coordinated global action is taken – now.
COP15 in 2022 was particularly significant as world leaders were faced with the all-important task of agreeing on a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) - a strategic plan setting global goals and targets, and detailing steps to be taken for people to live in harmony with nature up to the year 2030 and set in motion an ambitious 2050 vision. At the end of COP15, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’ (GBF) was adopted.
Prior to this, the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 was a framework that outlined a key set of objectives and targets to stop biodiversity loss by 2020. The Plan was made up of targets, known as ‘Aichi Targets’, which included raising awareness for the importance of biodiversity; reducing the rate of loss of natural habitats, ensuring fish stocks are managed sustainably; protecting threatened species and restoring important ecosystems. However, according to the UN, the world failed to fully achieve any of these targets.
The Aichi Targets were replaced by the GBF when it was adopted at COP15. But so far, progress on implementing the GBF has been worryingly slow, much as it had been with the Aichi Targets. It is crucial that key decision-makers use the failures of the previous strategy to make sure history does not repeat itself.
In the past, important conversations about meaningful protection of nature have always been deferred until the next COP. The GBF was supposed to prevent this, and put States on a path to the action we so urgently need. This is the first time that decision makers have met since the GBF was agreed, and serious conversations need to be had.
At COP15, every country agreed to revise its plan – called a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) – to bring it in line with the GBF. Yet just weeks away from COP16, less than 30 NBSAPs had been submitted.
COP16 was the opportunity for Parties to live up to their commitment to the GBF and demonstrate their ability to turn words into legally binding action to effectively protect biodiversity. The targets agreed in 2022 risk failing, unless countries put in place binding, national laws for nature protection.
Countries must consider biodiversity in all decision-making. Ministers at COP16 needed to commit to translating the promises made in their NBSAPs into domestic, legally-binding decisions.
We also want countries to focus on enforcement mechanisms for the GBF, and to embed a human rights based approach at all stages of the framework’s implementation. Many areas of nature which have already been designated as ‘protected’ are still suffering from poor management and the destructive impacts of human activities. ‘Protected’ must mean protected.
We urgently need binding tools that embed nature at the heart of all national decision-making and sectoral laws. Simultaneously, we need countries to get serious about the effectiveness of their conservation and restoration measures, and deliver tangible, measurable outcomes that demonstrate real progress in safeguarding biodiversity.
Here are our key takeaways at the end of the two weeks.
The National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) to achieve the targets agreed at COP15 are lagging behind where they need to be
In 2022 at the last nature COP, the adoption of the Global Biodiversity Framework was a watershed moment. But for the framework to be effective, it would need to be followed by high-level political mobilisation and buy-in from global leaders, as well as an implementation pathway that would help ensure that its 23 targets will be met. This was expected to be the main mission of COP16 – to finalise the mechanisms to achieve these ambitious targets for nature.
However, even at the start of COP16, it was clear that Parties are currently not on track to deliver any of the agreed targets, threatening a repetition of their failure to achieve the previous set of globally agreed biodiversity targets – the Aichi Targets.
By the end of COP16, only 44 out of 195 Parties had submitted their revised NBSAPs, while around 119 submitted national targets only.
While such numbers may be comparatively higher than those of the previous decade, they are still alarmingly low, especially given that we are already halfway through the decade in which targets need to be achieved.
Read our suggestions on how to improve these national action plans.
Finance and resources for nature need to be much increased
The gap in biodiversity financing is estimated to be around $700 billion per year until 2030. This substantial gap highlights the need for increased financial resources to protect and restore biodiversity. A significant portion of this gap (around $500 billion) is meant to be addressed through the elimination and redirection of environmentally harmful subsidies, which was one of the targets in the GBF. But, national implementation of this Target has been minimal to date.
Public finance remains a crucial component for the achievement of the GBF targets, but the Global North has failed to provide the funds they committed to at COP15.
There was some good news on funding, as Parties managed to agree on the establishment of a new fund for the sharing of benefits derived from the digital sequencing of genetic information from natural resources (DSI). A fund like this, which would mostly target pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies, has the potential to raise up to $1 billion a year for the conservation, sustainable use of biodiversity, including in the form of finance for indigenous peoples and local communities inhabiting or managing areas where such genetic resources occur.
The implementation of nature conservation targets needs a lot of further work and commitment
Negotiations on this topic were very challenging, with countries being hesitant to be more transparent about the national progress they’ve made, let alone to be reviewed at a country-by-country level.
The outcome text from COP16 outlines the methods for the global review of collective progress (the ‘biodiversity stocktake’) that will take place at COP17 and COP19. While it includes a reference to improving actions and efforts, it lacks a clear follow-up process.
Additionally, the text restricts significantly the type of inputs to be considered by the global review, excluding contributions from non-state actors. In our view, inclusivity and multi-stakeholder contributions would contribute to both the accuracy and the legitimacy of the process.
Finally, the proposal lacks a high-level political phase, which is crucial for making sure that political commitment and oversight continues. And as for the monitoring framework in particular, almost all main indicators have been agreed.
Indigenous Peoples and local communities were recognised more than ever
COP16 saw increased recognition of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities and their crucial role in biodiversity conservation.
The adoption of the Work Plan for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities is a significant step forward, but even better is the establishment of a new permanent CBD Subsidiary Body on the implementation of the use of traditional knowledge in nature conservation and protection.
Overall, COP16 ended with much unfinished business.
All states were supposed to have submitted their national plans for achieving the targets set out at the last nature COP in 2022, but as COP16 concludes, around 75% of countries’ national plans are missing. There are also hundreds of billions worth of gaps in finance for nature, and decisions on how to monitor the progress of reaching the targets for nature postponed. Many of the governments that attended the conference have failed to keep the promises they made in 2022 and going into this nature COP.
Action and justice for nature and people cannot wait until the next COP. As they return home from Colombia, we expect governments to ensure that protected areas of nature really are protected, and that supply chains and extractive sectors don’t lead to human rights violations or deforestation.